By GLENN GUILBEAU Tiger Rag Editor
The national offensive numbers produced by coach Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss from 2020-25 were constant through a parade of quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers and offensive coordinators.
Also constant was a very fast up tempo style, tempered by effective run games with running backs and run-pass options with quarterbacks.
2020 – No. 3 in total offense at 555.5 yards a game with offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, No. 5 in passing with quarterback Matt Corral at 333.7 yards a game and 26th in rushing at 210.6. … 5-5 season with a 26-20 win over No. 11 Indiana in the Outback Bowl.
2021 – No. 6 in total offense at 492.5 yards with Lebby, No. 12 in rushing at 217.6, No. 23 in passing with Corral at 257.6 yards a game. … 10-3, 6-2 SEC for first 10-win regular season in program history.
2022 – No. 8 in total offense at 496.4 yards and No. 3 in rushing at 256.6 with new offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr., who was Kiffin’s OC in 2018-19 at Florida Atlantic and his offensive analyst while Alabama’s OC. Sophomore USC transfer quarterback Jaxson Dart finished 51st in passing yards at 228.8. … But the Rebels dipped to 8-4 and 4-4.
2023 – No. 13 in total offense at 461.9 for Kiffin’s worst season in that category at Ole Miss and 39th in rushing with 176.3 a game. Dart improved to No. 26 in passing with 258.8 a game. … 11-2, 6-2 with a win over No. 10 Penn State in the Peach Bowl.
2024 – No. 2 in total offense at 526.5 and in passing at 350.8 with a No. 3 in scoring at 38.6 points a game. Dart jumped to No. 3 in passing at 329.2 and No. 1 in efficiency at 180.7 (276-of-398, 6 INTs, 29 TDs). … 10-3, 5-3, but no College Football Playoff after inexcusable losses to Kentucky and Florida.
2025 – No. 2 in total offense at 489.7, No. 3 in passing at 313.3, 10th in scoring at 36.9. New quarterback Trinidad Chambliss finished No. 3 in passing with 3,937 yards and rushed for another 527. … With an 11-1, 7-1 regular season, Ole Miss reaches the CFP for the first time just as Kiffin left for LSU. The Rebels finish 13-2 and No. 3 nationally, capping the program’s best four years since coach Johnny Vaught in the late 1950s, early ‘60s.
The key to Kiffin’s offenses are Explosive Plays, which Pro Football Focus defines as runs of 10 or more yards and completions of 15 yards or more. Ole Miss led FBS schools with 905 explosive plays from 2021-25 – 523 passes, 382 runs. Oregon was next with 842, followed by Georgia with 840, North Texas with 819 and Ohio State with 801.
LSU was a distant 38th with 403.
Dart had 276 explosive passes from 2021-24 before becoming a first round pick of the New York Giants in 2025 and winning the job during the season.
“I think if I would put it one word, it would be electric,” Dart said in a 2024 ESPN interview when asked about Kiffin’s offensive philosophy. “I’m really just out there playing point guard, trying to get the ball to the playmakers.”
Weis called Ole Miss’ offensive plays as offensive coordinator from 2021-25, but Kiffin was still directing him.
“He’s the best offensive mind I’ve been around,” said Weis, whose father Charlie Weis was a three-time Super Bowl winning offensive coordinator with the New England Patriots and a former head coach at Notre Dame.
Staying with Kiffin was the main reason Weis left Ole Miss … after staying on as the Rebels’ play caller and OC to finish out the playoffs as did most of Kiffin’s offensive staff, taking pay checks from both schools.
“It’s been extremely emotional,” he said at the time. “It’s been very difficult. It was a really hard decision, but at the end of the day, I owe a lot to coach Kiffin and the things he’s given me in my career and brought me along and gave me opportunities to come here to Ole Miss and to Alabama. We just have a really good relationship, and I think we work really well with each other. We have a system that kind of works. I was excited to continue to do that at LSU. And obviously I’ve had a great time here at Ole Miss.”
While Weis has called the plays for Kiffin, including at Florida Atlantic in 2019, Kiffin is directing.
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” Weis said. “He’s extremely involved in the process. A lot of it is more maybe before the series, when he says, Hey, Charlie, get to this.’ Those sorts of things. He’s got such an unbelievable feel for the game. He’s got moments where he sees something or recognizes something. So, it’s certainly a collaborative effort for sure.”
Dart sees Kiffin as the king of adjustments.
“I’ve learned a lot from Kiff – just his ability to make adjustments in and out of possessions and especially during halftime,” he said. “With the I-pads, the luxuries we have to make adjustments is great and quick nowadays. With each drive, it’s an advantage for us.”
Kiffin and Weis cater the offense to the specific skills of the quarterback instead of fitting him into their box.
“One of the cool things about coach Kiffin throughout his career is we’ve always molded the system to the quarterback, and not the other way around,” Weis said.
A Star Wars fan, Dart was asked what character of all the Star Wars franchise of movies would best fit Kiffin.
“The only right character would have to be Yoda, because of his wisdom, his knowledge,” Dart said of the Jedi Master who debuted in the first sequel – “The Empire Strikes Back” in 1980 after the original “Star Wars” in 1977.
“I am constantly learning things from him,” Dart said. “You go across college football landscape and ask any coach or player, they’d all say he’s one of the best – if the not the best – offensive mind. He’s someone that I look up to.”
But coach Yoda’s prequel is on the dark side – defense.
Kiffin’s late father Monte Kiffin was one of the greatest defensive coordinators in NFL history with Tampa Bay, inventing an offshoot of the Cover 2 pass defense that was named the “Tampa 2.”
Kiffin coached tight ends, receivers and quarterbacks and was offensive coordinator at USC under Pete Carroll from 2001-06. Carroll was a defensive coordinator from 1980-82 at North Carolina State under head coach Monte Kiffin. Carroll was later defensive coordinator for the New York Jets and San Francisco 49ers before being head coach at New England from 1997-99 and then USC from 2001-09.
Then from 2014-16 at Alabama, Kiffin was offensive coordinator under defensive mastermind head coach Nick Saban.
“I learned defense from my dad,” Kiffin said on the Pat McAfee show on Sept. 24, 2025 – the week of the LSU game. “And I was always listening to the problems that teams and schemes gave him. Then I went to Pete Carroll for six years. So, I got to listen to him. Then I went to Nick Saban. That’s three of the greatest defensive minds ever that one I was raised with, the other two I spent nine years combined with sitting in meetings, where they were talking about what gives them problems.”
And Kiffin took notes.
“Just kind of kept all that info and created this offense, and then added the tempo part to it,” he said. “Kind of the Baylor style when Art Briles came to us at FAU. And so, that’s where we are now.”
Briles was a successful spread offense expert coach at Houston from 2003-07 and particularly at Baylor from 2008-15.
“The explosive plays pay off,” Kiffin told McAfee. “We led the country in plus-30-yard plays last year and are first again this year. And obviously that has a lot to do with great players, too.”
LSU fans get ready for an explosion of offense from all directions.
“It’s a really cool system that we’ve created that plays at a really fast tempo,” Weis, aka Yoda Jr., said. “It’s high pace, but at the same time we’re trying to do pro-style schemes and prepare our players for the next level as well. The unique blend of our system is it’s not just a 100 percent speed offense. We run, too. It’s complex with what we do in it. I’m blessed I get to coach in it.”
And Kiffin and Weis teach it very fast, too. They had Trinidad Chambliss, a transfer from Division II Ferris State, for just the summer before last season at Ole Miss because he did not arrive until after spring practice. And Chambliss threw for nearly 4,000 yards last season and rushed for another 500. He also delivered those explosive plays with 93 completions of 15 yards or more and seven runs of 10 yards or more.
“Our system really has a lot of NFL elements in it – protections, routes, different runs,” Kiffin said. “We just happen to go really fast.”
And Kiffin is keeping defensive coaches up at night thinking about it, like his father and Carroll and Saban used to worry about offenses.
“Over time, defensive coordinators have said that, including coach Saban, that what this system does – it gives you problems plays. But it goes really fast also,” Kiffin said.
“I’ve always said he’s one of the brightest offensive minds and one of the best play callers I’ve ever been around,” Saban said last season. “He brought creativity, energy and a real competitive spirit to everything he did (at Alabama). He can take advantage of a defense as well as anybody.”
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